The Label Makers of Skill.

Remember this: Do not stick your finger in the fire. It hurts.

When you are born you are a blank slate for someone else to write all over. You learn your parents chosen religion perhaps. You look at Vogue to figure out what clothes to wear. Your father may even be the one to teach you how to put makeup on.  Watch an adult on how to act for good or bad. Stick your finger in a fire on the gas stove until you realize this hurts. No one ever remembers the moment when the idea they were not who they were at that moment began. We just know that someone told us when we reached a certain age, we were suppose to become something. What this something is remained to be seen.

We get introduced to the idea of destiny and fate. We also get introduced to the idea of whether the glass is half full or half empty. There might not be a reason for any of this, but the concept that existance and reality, even if a mere illusion of the mind is mind-blowing.

You might have to pick a wife or a husband. Decide how many children you want. What career you want to pursue. After you exist in these identities for several years that may be how you define yourself.

At some point in a life, the identity we wear could come in the form of an employer preaching to us that we 'must wear many hats'. All of these hats were written about in books that are intended to groom the employee into a certain mold of agreeable manageability. This is for packaging where public consumption is concerned.

You go to a job, learn the skills but eventually everyone you meet who knows about you refers to you as 'the person that works as the hamburger tosser', or the 'writer for South by Southwest' but never who you actually are. People are not concerned about the center of your being in jobs. Consumers and employers just want you to do the work, be loyal solely to their business while you watch their glory grow in conjunction with being paid poorly for manual labor. Eventually to be discarded no matter how good a job you've done because the employer wants to get with the times or go with the newest self help book for business.

The same thing about identity can be said if you are always refered to as Tom's wife, Todd's sister, or that white lady that walks up and down the road. Your identity in regards to how other see you is not about who you are, but what you may do, who or what they equate with you, or whatever gossip is being spread down at the local churches.

People do not extend themselves past these outward identities that are subjective. Without realizing, you eventually start doing the same thing to yourself. You are the worker. Work gets you through. Work takes away all the negative things in your life by putting you in a place where you don't have to deal with the bad. Work hides you. You hide in work. If you were to lose work and money....where does life go for you?

Anxiety, the unknown, and the worst possible scenario given your mentality at the time.

When you finally hit the bottom of the trash can you realize there is bacteria living there. You are really not as low as it gets. There is always the ground outside the can itself. It's never really as bad as it could be.

People you come across will try to label you in the way of the Artista, the Shy Person, the Asshole, the Weird Old Lady Pushing the Grocery Cart, or 'that annoying person' because it makes them feel more at easy with putting you in a slot, then moving on. Nothing special there. You are weighed with some value that only they internalize but could be untrue when actually applied to you.

When it comes to your thinking, you either think positive or negative about yourself, then act accordingly. If you lose everything and fall down in a ditch thinking your life has ended then you didn't have your identity prioritized in a healthy way. You change jobs. Your job is not you even though employers would like your job identity to consume you so you will give them better work...which is far from the truth.

If you were to lose everything today....you would still be you. Nothing would change other than your financial situation which is not your identity. If your husband or wife left you, you would still be you. You are not their appendage. You did not merge by osmosis into their person or become a part of their psyche.

I was watching Life of Pi by Yann Martel this evening. There was a moment when the older main character Pi Patel says, "Even when God seemed to have abandoned me, he was watching. Even when he seemed indifferent to my suffering he was watching. And when I was beyond all hope of saving, he gave me rest. Then he gave me a sign to continue my journey."

The Profane can be found everywhere if you are open to receiving the lesson. You can read a 5000 word book, view a surrealist painting, or watch light hit the dew collected on the side of the road like a thousand diamonds. If you are open to what you see, read, hear, feel, or even taste that is what makes all the difference in the quality of your Soul.

Meaningful things are quite unextraordinary if looked upon with indifference. The universe is watching at all times, if you are good or bad, it doesn't matter. The Universe will construct itself around your Soul; tailor made to drive you to that state of being where you find actualization for all things in your existance. The more you fight the Universe the more it struggles to right itself and your life.

As for your identity.....you never actually lose it. You can't see it for all the other garbage you covered it up with. Take a spiritual bath....it does wonders.

Define yourself by your skill not your label.

~Written by: W Harley Bloodworth

ps...this has nothing to do with hunting. *hiccup*



Work Cited:
Life of Pi. Dir. Ang Lee. Writer. Yann Martel. DVD Fox 2000 Pictures, 21 Nov 2012